Chapter 3: What is a siphon?
Xadia was awestruck at the sight of the city. It was like he was in a sci-fi game, with skyscrapers that were tall buildings with color crystals at their tops, screens like holographic traffic wardens, a glowing road, hover trains, hover cars, motorcycles, and even hover boots that seemed to react to the glowing road like a magnetic force pulling and pushing the vehicles.
A civilian with a strange bird-like pet had walked past them. It was somewhat of a black eagle with glowing blue eyes, blue nails, and blue stripes at the end of its wings.
"Is this real?" Xadia wondered, blinking twice.
"What is that?" Xadia couldn't help but ask.
"That's an eagle familiar," Ric answered. "It's very rare nowadays," Gwen added.
Now, Xadia was wondering how long he had been in the pod, as the world he knew had changed drastically. Even the style of fashion was different, with clothes glowing. Some had hover hats, headcovers, and bags.
"Which year is it? Was it not yesterday that man came, hover vehicles, holographic screens?"
Now he understood why a siphon crystal or whatever was foreign to him; it had not been invented.
"That means Georgia doesn't even exist anymore. Mom has probably passed away. Does that mean that guy put me in a sleeping pod to save me, to experiment on me, or..." Xadia thought, frustrated. "I have to find out. I need information."
"What's he thinking about? There are times he acts weird, like that other time, who doesn't know what a siphon is?" Gwen thought.
"It seems like you fancy the new Cr5 sneakers," Ric said as he caught Xadia staring at a hover boot. "I'll try to get you one before you go home, kid."
"Cr5? Wow!"
"This way," Ric said as they made their way to a vehicle port with Xadia's eyes still glued to the gigantic screen on a skyscraper.
Looking at the port, it was like a bus stop from the old days, with only a holographic screen as an exception. Tapping on the holographic screen, Ric ordered a hover pick-up car. He then took out an ID card and held it to the screen.
"Payment transaction ignored," an automated voice was heard.
"Ooh, you're surprised. Patrolmen get free transport," Ric said, smiling as he caught Xadia staring at him.
Now in front of them was a futuristic taxi with no tires, but a glowing glass at the bottom, making it a hover taxi. Its design was different from other vehicles as it had yellow-colored holographic designs on its sides.
They got in, and Xadia decided to stay at the window side, as he was still astonished at the sight of the city. The car started to hover above the ground until it reached the required meter, then it took off. Looking out the window, Xadia was no different from a seven-year-old boy.
"We're here," Ric announced as they left the vehicle.
Looking at the apartment, Xadia realized that it wasn't a house that only one person could own. Like all apartments, they had neighbors. It was a hover house with an outside hover elevator, which allowed them to go up and down from the ground to their apartment floor. The Fords lived in such an apartment too.
As they approached the door, Xadia's eyes widened as he took in the size of the interior. "What the hell? What's this? I could have sworn from outside that this was a small apartment. What type of sorcery is this? I guess nothing is impossible in this new age," Xadia deduced.
The living room had everything a futuristic house could have: a projected holographic TV, a glowing table and chair, siphon crystal bulbs, and at the back of the room was a red crystal in an enclosing.
"All these crystals, is it some type of power supply?" Xadia wondered.
Next to the living room was what looked like a futuristic kitchen.
"I think he's shy. I don't think he's ever been in such a luxurious home before," Gwen whispered to her husband.
"Allow me to take you to your temporary room, and if you decide to stay, it'll be yours. Your pod is already there," Gwen said, interrupting Xadia's thoughts.
Xadia's new room was a normal four-meter wide space with a hover bed at the center of the room. A crystal enclosing hung from the ceiling, and behind the room was a glowing chair and a desk with a screen-like glass that projected the word "holo top."
"I'll let you settle in. Here's my payment card. You can use it to order some new clothes using the holo top. I'll check on you later," Gwen said as she left the room.
Xadia could see the pod at the end of the room and rushed to the holo top to admire it.
"Okay, it's a piece of cake, it's a video game. It's just like the bridge's hologram in Cod Infinite Warfare," Xadia said as he turned on the holo top.
"It's like a futuristic computer."
It didn't take long for Xadia to understand the holo top. Now he was minutes away from getting the information he needed about his so-called new world.
"Where am I?" Xadia said as he inputted his question into the search bar.
/Utopia #2, second civilization/
"What are siphon crystals?" Xadia typed into the search bar.
Two hundred years ago, Earth had undergone a new change. Humans in their curious ways had sought to better themselves, to evolve, and in their quest, they discovered something.
They found a way to create energy in living things in the form of crystals. A rare crystal made from an unstable Earth's crust, named siphonium, had been theorized to be compatible with living and non-living things. They started experimenting on animals and dead preserved corpses, and a research factory known as SIPHON had succeeded. The crystals turned stable in animals, and it had evolved. It was rich in energy and was now termed "siphon crystals."
With the new siphon crystals, they had furthered their research, and with a crystal core, they had created a new species of humans. They were evolved, sophisticated, and high in intelligence, having traits of the animal's crystal that powered them. They were the next-gen, at least that's what they thought.
In their newly evolved state, the animals had become more like savage beasts, and they could not be contained. They had all escaped. The next-gen had also turned savage, and they started massacring humans. The corpses of the dead were retrieved by the next-gen and they started growing themselves.
The environment on Earth had become unsafe due to the proliferation of evolved plants and siphon beasts, forcing humans to abandon the planet and scatter across the solar system.
"It all makes sense now. I must be a next-gen. The fact that I'm breathing confirms it, but I don't have the urge to kill, and I'm pretty sane right now," Xadia mused to himself.
"Hey, holo top!" he called out.
"Hello!" responded the automated voice.
'Wow, it's like Siri,' Xadia thought.
"Do a thermal scan of me," Xadia ordered.
Six lines of blue laser scanned Xadia from head to toe, and thermal images of him appeared on the holo screen.
Xadia was perplexed by the results. It wasn't what he had expected.
'I don't have a crystal in me. Maybe I'm a successful next-gen project,' he wondered.
"Tch....," Xadia hissed at the thought of being a lab project.
He then moved to the pod, where a fairly scratched-up text caught his attention.
"Hmmm... a pod number: A5CaP #170. Ascap, I'll keep that in mind."
Returning to the holo top, Xadia had one last thing that was bugging him. He typed into the search bar, "What is a siphon?"
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